According to pressure sore statistics from the US Department of Health and Human Services, 2.5 million patients are affected by bed sores each year in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2004, 159,000 residents of nursing homes had pressure sores. Pressure sores cost $9.1 to $11.6 billion each year in the country.
According to statistics, nearly 2 million people live with limb loss in the United States. The main causes of loss of limb are peripheral arterial disease, diabetes, and other vascular diseases, which make up for 54%, trauma which makes up for 45% as well as cancer, which accounts for 2%. Every year, about 185,000 amputations take place in the US.
In the past two decades, the number of people in the United States getting pacemaker implants has increased significantly. There are 225,567 people with internal cardiac pacemakers, making it the country with the highest number of patients with this implant. A study found that between 1993 and 2009, there were close to 3 million people in the U.S. who had a pacemaker implanted.
A recent study published by JAMA Internal Medicine sheds some light into how the gender of a doctor may play a role in the quality of health care for patients in New York and across the U.S. The information suggests that patients treated by female physicians have a greater chance of living after being discharged from a hospital. Additionally, the study revealed that patient deaths are higher when they are treated by male doctors.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, over 5 million people in the United States are affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Although it is commonly known to affect people aged 65 and older, up to 5% of those diagnosed have early onset Alzheimer’s.
